She had clasped the arm of the chair with her thin hands, and sat erect as if preparing for a spring.
Leo hung greedily on her lips. "She understands the art of hating," he thought, and his heart beat loud.
And then, without further inquiry on his part, she told him how she had discovered the secret.
It was about two years ago, when Felicitas was already engaged, that she had found her one day in his study rummaging in his writing-table, the key of which was generally in Ulrich's keeping, and, when she saw that she was caught, she went down on her knees and had besought Johanna not to betray her; it was because she could no longer endure the thought of her fiancé sitting at the same writing-table which contained her letters that she had searched for them. Her letters, and to whom? So it had come to light.
"The fool!" Leo burst forth. "She might have known that her letters were burnt long ago."
His sister seemed to have awaited this incautious exclamation. "You confess, then?" she said, pleased.
He hesitated. "Confess! There is nothing to confess! A few scrawls belonging to the time of that boy-and-girl flirtation which went on under your eyes. Beyond that, I never had a line from her."
She looked at him again with her tired smile. "You are stubborn, dear friend," she said. "Your whilom mistress capitulated at once. She did me the doubtful honour of making me her confidante, but the rôle was not to my taste. The very next moment I showed her the door."
Leo saw at last that his secret, for good or ill, was in his sister's possession. To deny any more would be sheer madness.
"And instead of using your knowledge to help and to save," he said, grinding his teeth, "you must needs rush and confide it to the bosom of our old private chaplain, and through that crooked channel try to ruin your brother's honourable name and peace of mind, eh?"